


Burn the Floor

by callmeonetrack



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 21:12:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeonetrack/pseuds/callmeonetrack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finnick and Johanna visit a Panem nightclub and find common ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn the Floor

_Spoilers_ : Slight background spoiler for Mockingjay  
_Prompt_ :  **finnick/johanna go clubbing? oh yeah.**  
_poppin' bottles in the ice, like a blizzard_  
when we drink we do it right gettin' slizzard  
grinding. johanna competing for his attention. yes, please.

 

She's bored. That's what she tells him anyway when she storms into his room--without so much as a tap first--in the training center just before midnight.  
  
He's got one leg out of his pants and his jacket and shirt have already been discarded. They'd only gotten back twenty minutes before from yet another dog and pony show the President had arranged for the Capitol's wealthiest and most corrupt citizens as part of Victory Week. The 69th Annual Hunger Games ended three days ago. Finnick had gritted his teeth, smiled and kissed every last painted cheek, despite wanting to spit, to claw at their skin. All those admiring eyes were only sizing him up, he knew, calculating their bids for later.  
  
"HEY!" Quick fingers snap in front of his eyes, making him blink. "You paying attention or what, Odair?"  
  
"What do you want, _Mason_?" He sighs and goes back to changing. She was the one who barged in without knocking, so she can damn well deal with seeing a little skin. Still, he turns his back seeing as how he barely knows this girl, the newest victor. He watched her Games, of course, but Finnick knows better than anyone how deceiving those particular appearances can be. And this one's tricky. That's how she won.  
  
"I want out!" she trills. Finnick peeks in the mirror as he slides his pants off the other leg to see her plop into the chair in the corner, hooking her boot-clad legs over the arm and drumming her heels into the butter-smooth leather upholstery. "We've been cooped up here all night. There's gotta be more interesting places in this joint." She waves a hand at the window to indicate the Capitol and not the training center.  
  
"Uh huh, like Security is just going to let us waltz around wherever we like." He grabs a tunic from a drawer and catches her smirking at his backside in the mirror as he lifts his arms to tug it on. Finnick slides the shirt on and when the fabric clears his eyes, he catches her reflection still staring. Their gazes lock and suddenly he feels a flare of heat he hasn't— _hasn't dared to let himself feel in case he forgets where he is, what he's doing, why he's doing it_ —in a very long time.  
  
Her dark eyes seem to burn right through him, and he watches as she carefully, deliberately, kicks one leg then the other down to the floor and stands. She walks—no, she stalks over to him like some sort of jungle cat, all cocked hips and light steps, and stops when she is less than a step behind him, so close that he can feel her hot breath gusting over his shoulder blade when she exhales. Her eyes flick upwards to his in the mirror and her smile is sharp like her axes when she murmurs "Do I look like the kind of girl who gives a fuck about asking permission?"  
  
His breath catches, but he's tired. Too damn tired to put on this particular act when he doesn't have to. So he just turns—their chests almost touch—and says, "No. I don't suppose you do." He lets his eyes drop, gives her a slow once over (he knows she's got a great body under the clothes because he—and all the twelve districts—have already seen her naked) then sneers a little, "Common courtesy seems to have escaped your grasp."  
  
She just stares for a second, then her face widens, splitting into a genuine grin. "Damn straight." Johanna taps his chest. "Speaking of things escaping," her eyebrow cocks the slightest bit, "put your pants on, stud. We're going out."  
  
****  
  
It took the better part of an hour to make their way past security checkpoints and towards the baritone thumps of music coming from the nearest red-roped nightclub. They slip past the bouncers easily enough--a victor is about as VI of a P as you can get in these parts--and soon find themselves the center of a host of attractive admirers in the upstairs loft area of the swanky club, champagne and canapes and cigars and plenty of more exotic delicacies (not all of the edible variety) being dangled before them.  
  
Finnick's never been here before, but he _is_ the toast of the Capitol, so he just settles back and lets the crowd come to him. Within the better part of an hour, he's got an orange-skinned redhead with legs that go for miles clutching one bicep and a tattooed blonde with a chest that could definitely be described as a treasure fluttering her eyes at him. He smiles and coos at them, places his hands in all the most outrageous places he can get away with in public, but through it all, he keeps an eye out for Johanna. Not to protect her—because God knows she can certainly take care of herself—so much as to make sure she doesn't leave a trail of bloodshed across the dance floor.  
  
But things are fine—she's fine, sorta wide-eyed, like a kid in a candy store. He watches as she reaches a hand out and pulls the nearest guy, a tall dark-skinned man with purple eyelids, into her personal space, twirling and gyrating wildly to the music. She's surprisingly graceful and he watches her move for a few minutes till the music fades into another song and she looks up into her partner's face laughing wildly. Anger blooms swiftly and suddenly as he thinks, _It's all a game to her. She has no idea..._ but it dies quickly. Because, of course, she has no idea. It's only been three days since she won. She hasn't learned yet that the Hunger Games were only the starter course. The real games have yet to begin.  
  
Or maybe she'll get lucky and she'll never have to find that out at all.  
  
He's startled from his morbid thoughts when Orange Crush and Tattoo Boobs suddenly swoop in, both kissing his neck in unison, like it was planned (hell, maybe it was), and he settles back, closes his eyes. He tries to enjoy it, can't, and thinks instead of the ocean. Ocean blue eyes and a pretty smile and the scent of the sea...  
  
He doesn’t know how much time passes before something is tugging his hand and he opens his eyes to find Johanna Mason scowling down at him. “C’mon. Dance with me.”  
  
His passionate paramours grumble but Johanna nails them each with a look, and they slink away, then she is leading him onto the floor and sliding her arms around his neck. The beat of the music is fast, but she is pressing in tight, her body stretched against his, curves fitting against the hard planes of muscle in his torso.  
  
Finnick swallows hard, trying to check his body’s natural reaction, and he’s a little angry again, because it’s one thing to have the insipid Capitol citizens hanging all over him, but she’s a victor. And she barely knows him, and he doesn’t care if Haymitch said he should keep an eye out for her, this is too much. And he turns his face to tell her so, when she exhales against his skin, and he nearly chokes on the ambrosia fumes on her breath. Her feet move and she leans into him heavily, almost a stagger, and Finnick realizes she is smashed and wonders how the hell she managed to consume that much alcohol in forty-five minutes.  
  
He’s about to ask her that very question when his gaze lifts to her eyes, wide and flat and surprisingly sober, which scan the crowd around them. There is steel in her stare and suddenly her lips are at his ear. “They’re watching. They’re all watching.” And there is something cold and dead in her voice, and he shivers. But then she twists her face to his, her lips twisting, and her eyes blaze as she says, “I guess that’s what they do best, right? Well, let’s give them a show to remember.”  
  
That’s the moment when he realizes that he likes this girl with her brash, careless confidence—in spite of himself. Then she is moving, limbs twining around him and up, into the air as she slides a thigh between his and pushes her hips against his groin, her forearms bearing down on his shoulders for leverage. Finn can’t really think, he can only hold on, fingertips digging into the curves of her hips as they fall into a rhythm. He crooks an arm tighter around her waist, and slides a hand down, palming her thigh, lifting her knee high against his hip as he rocks into her. The pulse of the music beats in his blood and for a moment, he is lost, his carefully disguised control discarded as he turns his face into the smooth skin at her neck, drags his teeth along the line of her shoulder.  
  
And then suddenly she’s pulling away, grasping his wrist. “Let’s go.” She frowns. “Let’s go back.” He looks at her for a long moment, then just shrugs and lets her tug him through the crowd.  
  
****  
  
They don’t exchange a single word the entire way back. Finnick keeps sneaking looks at her when he thinks she won’t catch him. He’s debating if he should apologize, though it’s not like she’s entirely innocent, and he can’t seem to find the right words for this particular situation. Johanna’s just staring ahead, her eyes cold and her mind seemingly a million miles away. He doesn’t say anything at all till they reach his door.  
  
“So that was…” He turns, one hand on the doorknob already, and pauses, because it wasn’t _fun_ , but maybe it was _educational_ in a weird way.  
  
Finnick’s still groping for the right word when Johanna blurts out, words blending together in a rush “WaitIneedtoknow—” she stops, takes a breath, her shoulders stiff, and starts again, slower. “I need to know how you do it.”  
  
He freezes, his eyes on her, widening, as he tries to process what she’s asking. “How I _do it_?” he echoes, his voice hesitant and wary as he tries to puzzle out what she’s asking—wondering if she’s asking what he thinks she’s asking.  
  
Her striking features screw up into a disgusted expression. “How you deal with all _that_ ,” one hand gestures emphatically, a sharp slashing movement in the air. “They’re like vultures. With their beady little eyes, always watching.” She shudders a little. “They pet you like you’re their shiny new toy, but you can see it in their eyes. They’d as soon as claw you into pieces.”  
  
Johanna’s voice is thick with revulsion, but she fastens her eyes on him again with intensity. “So I need to know how you do it. How you smile and joke and let them touch you and be all…” she purses her lips, “charming?”  
  
He stares at her for a second—he is so tired—and then he laughs, the sound short and sharp and bouncing off the walls of the long, empty corridor. “Didn’t think you were the kind of girl who gave a fuck about being charming.”  
  
“I’m not. Usually.” She blinks and then her face twists. “Snow says my first _appointment_ is next week.”  
  
And just like that, he can’t breathe, and his only thought is, _Three days. It’s only been three fucking days._ That bastard. His chest aches and he doesn’t know why. He barely knows her and he shouldn’t care this much. He’d thought he was better at that by now. And besides, it’s not like he doesn’t know how it works, and of course, they want her, and why should she be special anyhow?  
  
Still. His hand reaches out—shaking just a little—for her shoulder, but she twists away and her voice is too loud. “Don’t. I don’t need your p—” he watches her swallow the word. “I don’t want that. I just— I need—” She’s almost gasping the words out, her breathing short and quick, then her head bows towards the faded carpet, shaking back and forth. Finnick just waits.  
  
When she raises it again, her jaw is set, shoulders thrust back. The fire is in Johanna’s eyes again. “So, you gonna help me, or not?”  
  
His hand just twists on the doorknob and he pushes it open for her. She brushes past him, pointed chin jutting forward, and Finnick thinks, as he closes the door, that he hopes the fire never goes out.  
  
\--fin-- 


End file.
